Melbourne’s hometown star Scott Boland remains on the sidelines as Australia on Monday named an unchanged playing XI for the Boxing Day Test against Pakistan. Australia, a day before the clash, confirmed an unchanged Playing XI with skipper Pat Cummins admitting that Boland was unlucky to miss out. Boland announced himself to the world when he took 6-7 on his debut in the MCG against England in the 2021-22 Ashes. But he will remain on the sidelines as the pace-tiro of Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood are fit to take part in the second Test on Tuesday.
“We’re a huge fan of Scotty, I don’t think that’s a secret. It’s very rare that you’re going to get through seven Test matches with the same (fast) bowling line-up, there’s always niggles or things that pop up,” Cummins said as quoted from cricket.com.au.
“He’s ready to go if anything happens, so I’m sure he’ll play a part at some point. The message (to Boland) is always ‘we love what you’re bringing, unfortunately, you miss out on this one but don’t change … and stay ready’,” Cummins added.
Pakistan named a 12-player squad for the second Test but held the final combination close to their chest.
One of the most notable changes in the squad is Sarfaraz Ahmed being sidelined from the Test squad after the nightmare he went through in the Peth Test. He scored just 7 runs in both innings with Mitchell Starc causing him all sorts of trouble.
Mohammad Rizwan has been added in his place and along with this a few other changes also took place pacer Khurram Shahzad was ruled out of the series because of an injury, while all-rounder Faheem Ashraf will also miss out after the poor test with bat and ball in Perth.
Australia XI: David Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitch Marsh, Alex Carey (wk), Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins (c), Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood.
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